


To pass among them, or touch

by singmyheart



Series: As in a sea [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Books, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, gratuitous abuse of Whitman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:55:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony complains that he’s being left out (of course), demands to know “what’s your deal, I take you in and I get shafted with this Avengers book club thing? Not that I want anything with a fucking Oprah seal on the cover, mind you, but what the fuck.” </p><p>(Or: the accidental founding of the Avengers Initiative book club by one Dr. Bruce Banner.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	To pass among them, or touch

It takes walking into the Tower’s common area one morning to find a demigod reading _Harry Potter_ to convince Bruce that his life could not possibly get any stranger. To be fair, though, he’s been spending a lot of time in the lab with Tony over the last few days, usually instead of sleeping, so he’s probably not operating at his full intellectual capacity. He needs coffee, so he makes some and comes back and nope, there’s Thor, stretched out on the couch with what is definitely a paperback copy of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone_ in one huge hand, completely engrossed. Bruce is intending to leave him be, but then Thor glances up and waves him over. “Bruce,” he greets him, warmly, expression familiar: it’s the kind of look you only see when someone’s really excited about something and they want to share, and Bruce has seen it on his face more than once. “This tale, of the Boy Who Lived, do you know it?”

Bruce does; he’d read the series in Bengali, casts his mind back to a library in Dhaka, afternoons spent reading in the slant of sunlight hotter than any August in New York, his old Penn State t-shirt collecting dust and that musty smell of old paper that still feels more like home than this Tower. He’d seen the movies in Romania and Serbia, badly dubbed, sitting alone in theatres half-full of exasperated parents and bored, underpaid teenagers picking up trash afterward.

“I do, yeah,” he says now, figures, _fuck it_ , and comes to sit across from Thor, tucking bare feet under him in an armchair, coffee cradled in his hands. “You’ll never hear the end of it from Tony if he catches you, though, I don’t think he’s read an actual paper book in fifteen years. You can get that stuff on the tablet he gave you, he didn’t show you how?”

“It was his suggestion,” Thor explains, a little ruefully. He doesn’t elaborate, but Bruce suspects this means he broke his tablet during a particularly enthusiastic game of Angry Birds. Again.

He asks “How do you like it?” and is regaled with Thor’s thoughts on the young heroes’ bravery, Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback, and his suspicions about Snape and Quirrell.

A couple of weeks later Thor has moved on to _The Goblet of Fire_ and is more enamoured than ever, so Bruce goes hunting. He leaves a stack of battered second-hand volumes outside the door to Thor’s suite while he’s out – _The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, the Princess Bride, Inkheart,_ and, just because, _The Hero With a Thousand Faces_ – with a yellow post-it note stuck to the top: **Thought you might enjoy these; I did. –Bruce**

They watch _The Princess Bride_ when it’s Thor’s turn to pick for movie night. He settles down with his head in Bruce’s lap around the first “As you wish” and stays there (“What? Asgard is a surprisingly emotionally expressive culture, apparently. Dick,” he whispers in response to Tony’s snort); Bruce pretends not to notice his eyes mist over near the end, just hands him the box of Kleenex when his sniffs become audible.

 *****

Bruce cooks a lot, these days. At first it had been for himself and Tony, mostly; grilled cheese or omelettes, just to sustain themselves and then get back to science. Now that he and the others have settled in a little, stopped tiptoeing quite so much around each other, he’s gravitated toward soup, stew, chili – good for people who are always on different schedules, and for times like now, after missions when all anyone wants is a meal, a shower and a good night’s sleep.

He and Thor are the sole occupants of the kitchen at the moment; the team’s dispersed to shower and they’d happened to be the first ones finished. Bruce boils water for macaroni and cheese while they wait and leaves Thor in peace; the image of him with _Inkheart_ in one hand and a coffee in the other, wet hair dripping onto the pages, is oddly endearing. Clint and Natasha wander in while Bruce is grating the dry, extra sharp cheddar he likes; she nudges him aside with her hip, takes the block of cheese and grater from him, and murmurs at him to sit. He knows better than to argue and thanks her instead, and he means it. Clint nods at Thor when Bruce sits down next to him at the breakfast bar, a wordless _what the hell?_

“Shut up, it makes him happy,” Bruce whispers at him, thought there’s no heat in it and it’s unnecessary, anyway, Thor’s not listening. He gets weirdly focused when he reads.

“Used to read a lot, when I was a kid,” Clint says, after a minute. He’s got a cold coming on; his voice is rough with it. He doesn’t meet Bruce’s eyes.

“Yeah?” Bruce waits.

“Library was always free, right? Quiet. As good a place to spend my time as any.” He sighs. “Always loved the big adventure stories, you know? _Robin Hood, The Count of Monte Cristo, Treasure Island.._.”

“ _Leatherstocking Tales_?” Natasha offers, over her shoulder, wry. The question is for Bruce’s benefit; it’s not like she doesn’t know where Hawkeye comes from.

“I should have guessed.” He treads carefully, here. “What about you, Tasha?” (Clint is the only one who calls her Nat.)

Clint snorts. Natasha tosses a paring knife at him without looking, which he catches between two fingers without blinking. He’s grinning – _yeah, picture her with her nose buried in a book._ “I’ve never been much of a reader,” she admits.

A tired, contented silence falls and stretches on until she sets a massive bowl of steaming, picture-perfect mac and cheese in front of each of them. Thor ignores his completely. She drops a kiss on Clint’s forehead, a rare display of affection, and rests her hand on Bruce’s collar for the briefest of moments before ladling a bowl for herself.

That night SHIELD calls them both back to Budapest. When they come back, a little bruised but otherwise fine, their stop in the kitchen is met by a canvas bag full of books and a folded piece of notebook paper: **Welcome back. –B**

There are two stacks held together with string: the one with an Angry Birds bookmark stuck in the top consists of leather-bound editions of _The D’Artagnan Romances, Robinson Crusoe, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ and _Leatherstocking Tales._ The other has a cartoon spider on it, and is taped to a stack that contains battered, musty copies of _The Phantom Detective, Flash Gordon: Volume One, Fifty Shades of Grey_ and a collection of Harlequin romances.

Any fear that he’d misjudged their tastes is assuaged the following evening, when he finds the two of them in the common area, legs tangled together from opposite ends of the couch, half-empty bottle of wine on the floor, completely absorbed in their respective reads.

*****

Over late-night club sandwiches in the lab, Tony complains that he’s being left out (of course), demands to know “what’s your deal, I take you in and I get shafted with this Avengers book club thing? Not that I want anything with a fucking Oprah seal on the cover, mind you, but what the fuck.”

“When was the last time you held a physical book in your hands, Tony?” Bruce queries, but just because he likes winding Tony up; he makes it so easy.

“That is _irrelevant,_ young grasshopper,” Tony counters, solemnly (ignoring Bruce’s quiet protest of, “Actually, I’m older than you,”) – “it’s the _principle_. You’ve got Thor with his big mug buried in the fucking _Hunger Games,_ of all things. What, you don’t think I _enjoy_ such pursuits? That my brilliant mind couldn’t stand to be open to the simple joys of fiction, like all I read is instruction manuals and Fury’s private emails to his therapist, or something? Because that hurts, Jolly Green, it really does.” He punctuates this with a french fry (stolen from Bruce’s plate, even) pointed severely in his direction. “I know, what do you get for the man who has everything, right? Well, the answer, let me tell you, is _not_ soap on a rope.” He waves away Bruce’s questioning look. “I adore Pepper, really, she’s the light of my life, fire of my loins and all that, but the utter inability to give birthday gifts is the closest thing she has to a weakness.”

When he walks in on the two of them in the common area shortly afterward, Tony with his head in Pepper’s lap and her reading _I Am Legend_ out loud, measured and calm and carding a hand through his hair, Bruce figures he’ll get Tony’s opinion later. He slips back out, but not before he notices _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I, Robot,_ and _Stranger in a Strange Land_ acting as a coaster for Tony’s glass of scotch.

*****

It’s Tony’s turn to choose for movie night, and they end up watching _Saving Private Ryan,_ which Bruce figures is because he’d had a snit with Steve that morning. It’s only massively uncomfortable for everyone until Steve walks out without a word after the first twenty minutes, and then Pepper gives Tony hell in a handbasket for being a child, and then it’s worse.

Bruce decides to stay out of it, and texts Tony instead. **Really? –B**

**You’re looking at me disapprovingly over the tops of your glasses right now, aren’t you? –T**

Midnight finds Steve in the gym, going at a heavy bag with what’s probably a wholly unnecessary amount of force, and then – yup, there it goes, comes free of its moorings and lands with a dull thud across the room. Bruce is about to leave him to it, but Steve must have heard him come in, turns around with his expression discreetly schooled into one of polite surprise. “Bruce, hi.”

“Hey, Steve.” He clears his throat. “Listen, I won’t keep you, I just wanted to give you this.” Steve unwraps his hands and reaches for the book Bruce pulls from his back pocket, brow furrowed.

“Thank you,” he says, clearly reflexive, even though he’s confused. He studies the cover for a second – it’s _Leaves of Grass –_ and when he looks up, his eyes are unreadable.

“Thought you might enjoy this a little more than the newspapers and SHIELD handbooks.” He tries to smile and doesn’t tell Steve he’d bypassed _The Naked and the Dead_ and _A Farewell to Arms_ for this one, that he’s got _Morning in the Burned House_ and _The Sea and the Bells_ set aside as well.

A little self-consciously, Steve turns to a random page, scans it for a second – and then murmurs, “ _You will hardly know who I am or what I mean; but I will be good health to you nevertheless, and filter and fibre your blood._ ” There’s a pause, and Bruce remembers what it was like to read those words for the first time, heavy and rich on his tongue. “Wow,” Steve murmurs, soft. “That’s really keen. Thanks, doc.”

“You’re welcome. I’ve got more, if you like it.”

“I’ll let you know.” His smile is genuine: there’s no trace of Captain America, like there so often is, this is all Steve, a little wistful, and it makes Bruce wonder how long it’s been since someone did something nice for Steve, just for the sake of being nice.

And then he leans down, careful, considering – Bruce knows what he’s doing even before Steve’s hand comes to rest on the small of his back, warm and solid; just like him to give Bruce a chance to say no, to back away – and kisses him. It’s lingering and sweet; Steve tastes like sweat and the hot cocoa he’d had earlier, and it feels like gratitude, like patience.

Bruce opens his eyes and thinks _well that's new and your eyelashes are ridiculous,_ but what he says instead is, “ _To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough…”_

The wrinkle in Steve’s brow is back, and Bruce reaches up to brush his fingertips across it. “What?” He’s smiling in earnest now.

“You’ll get to that one eventually,” Bruce explains, and Steve laughs. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title and quoted poems are Walt Whitman ('I Sing the Body Electric' and 'Song of Myself'). I'll never be able to write Steve without a disgustingly obvious bit of poetry-loving self-insertion and I'm not sorry.


End file.
